A selection of useful toolkits curated to help support best practice in cultural placemaking, developed in partnership with leading cultural organisations and placemaking professionals.
Placemaking for Children and Young People
Produced in partnership with Turner and Assemble
What happens when we step away from our iPads and digital devices and start to see our built environment as a learning platform? The places we live in can provide a rich environment and resources to inform any curriculum and enhance any learning. All of this can – and should – start at primary school level.
Over an 18 month period, Turner did exactly this, working with Turner prize-winning collective, Assemble, to empower children to not just engage more directly in their home town, but to help to shape it too.
The planning and learning from the Turner and Assemble project for Pioneering Places has now been produced in this updated second edition toolkit for primary schools, featuring over 30 different exercises and lesson plans, ranging from 5 – 60 minutes.
Four of the key recommendations in the Cultural Learning Alliance Report Card for 2024 are all underpinned by three key principles:
- An emphasis on a rounded learning experience for the personal development and wellbeing of the ‘whole child’ – for the present as well as for the future
- A focus on representation, breadth and relevance across the Arts curriculum, resources and practice
- A commitment to ensuring that the cultural sector can respond strategically and collaboratively to meet the needs of young people in schools and in their communities, and is resourced specifically to support this work.
Connecting arts education with place can be a powerful combination to work towards these goals. This toolkit has been designed to help you achieve them.
National Cultural Planning Toolkit
Developed by our CDF Network (Round One) partners, Creative Estuary, and drafted with the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) and Urban Roots Consulting, this toolkit includes model policies, along with sections on key issues of interest identified by the project steering group:
- Governance
- Access to land and investment
- Co-location
- Community engagement and co-design
There are also sections focused on the planning policy process and signposting examples of best practice within existing planning policies and strategies at the local level.
CLICK TO ACCESS OR DOWNLOAD TOOLKITÂ (via Creative Estuary)
Want more …?
Visit our regularly-updated Evidence Base section and filter using the Focus: Toolkit category for a list of the latest toolkits from third party organisations. Latest updates include:
- Arts-based Research Methods with Underserved Communities (University College London, 2025)
- Arts Education Capabilities Framework (Cultural Learning Alliance, 2025)
- Community R&D: How to take part in R&D at a local level (AHRC, 2025)
- Co-creating Culture Policy (AHRC, 2025)
- How to Share Research and Evaluation Findings Through Performance (Centre for Cultural Value, 2024)
